Are You Using Your Peripheral Hearing?

You’ve no doubt heard of peripheral vision; seeing things that are
just outside of your direct line of sight, the not so obvious. But have
you heard of peripheral hearing? It does exist and everyone has experienced
it, you just may not be aware of it.

Peripheral hearing is defined as
hearing auditory information on a subconscious level but not quite fully
processing what is heard.

Have you ever been watching TV and someone is talking to you at the same
time? You are either giving your attention to the TV, missing fully what
the person is saying (key word here is fully) or the other way around.
Either way, it’s impossible for most people to fully process the
information from both sources at the same time.

When it comes to staying connected to our customer in the service/sales
experience, tuning in to peripheral hearing is key is assuring we gather
as much useful and relevant information as possible.

While on a recent ride along I observed both peripheral vision and peripheral
hearing. In some instances the information was captured while others were missed.

In this case we were called out to give a quote on a tankless water heater.
When we pulled up we saw in our peripheral vision:

A new garage door being installed

4 very energetic dogs

A wife studying

An adult son

In our peripheral hearing:

The wife’s test was for a psych class

The husband was back for 30 days from his job oversees

The husbands job sometimes keeps him from his family 3-5 months at a time

There was a lot going on here, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

As we began asking questions of the wife, the husband and the 19 year old
son we were given even more valuable information. However, when three
people are talking, it’s very difficult to capture all that’s
being said, and not being said.

This one simple technique can help you maximize the peripheral information
coming at you both visually and auditorially.

Take a few good notes from the things you are hearing. Then elaborate with
each person individually to get their viewpoint and to make sure you got it.

This will serve you later when you sit down to go over options because
now you have more information. In our case we had 3 times as much because
we got perspective from each person. In addition, you’re validating
each person which will increase the number of sponsors you have on the job.

Giving attention to your peripheral hearing increases the likelihood that
you will recall more information, compile better notes, and gather more
clarifying information from all parties.

We ended up with a very thorough service experience for our customer that
generated multiple tasks and over $9,000 in revenue. A success all the
way around.